And Then
by Xinthos
Summary: ...There were none. [OneShot]


**A/N:** Implied LeexTentenxNeji, SakuraxSasukexNaruto (if you tilt it upside down and use a magnifying glass), InoxShikamaru, NejixHinata (If you squint _really_ hard). Pairings don't have too much to do with this story though, so if you don't like them then I wouldn't recommend you leave just because of that.

**Summary:** …There were none.

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**And Then…**

_Twelve _

Shino was the first one to go, I remember. His passing was much like he was when he was alive- quiet. Kiba and Hinata were heartbroken, and it took many people to convince them to come out of their houses again. Naruto helped the most in cheering them up, but that's to be expected. At first nothing seemed to change around Konoha. For such a life-changing thing like that, his two teammates were surprised to find that no one in the village besides their friends seemed to notice. Did they not know? How could they not be crying, weeping, mourning for the loss of one of the greatest shinobi of the village?

It was almost as if no one remembered him, which of course wasn't true. Everyone remembered when it came to the everyday things. He wasn't training in the park anymore, he was at the graveyard. He wasn't joining their parties or being one of the few sensible ones out of the group, he wasn't walking around the village. He wasn't _anywhere. _There was no more three-man team, and it was devastating. Life moves on however, and Shino was only the first of many…

_Eleven_

Much to everyone's surprise, Neji Hyuuga wasn't invincible. He might have seemed so at times, maybe even all the time depending on how well you knew him. His death was probably the second most mysterious of all of them- but that was always Neji's style. Lee and Tenten came back with his body. He was only eighteen years old, and the second one of us to go. The autopsy was inconclusive and it was reported that he died of unknown causes. No one would ever find out what really happened, but we all saw that his teammates knew. They were there, and they saw what happened. It showed in the way they talked, the way they walked, the way they did everything. It was obvious it was a heavy weight to bear, but they still refused to speak up. After a while everyone stopped questioning them.

Neji's entire clan showed up at the funeral. Hinata was chosen to give the speech, but to everyone's surprise she didn't show up. Her father gave it instead. His uncle's words were short and impersonal, but then, Neji was known for being distant.

_Ten_

Upon investigation it was discovered that Hinata had not shown up simply because she _could_ not- she was entered into an asylum, by herself. She claimed she was mentally unstable and refused to say anything else on the matter when anyone tried and talked to her. All of us used to visit her, but as more and more of us disappeared, it was obvious that she was no longer herself. She died three months later from malnutrition, after refusing to eat. We all knew why.

_Nine_

Kiba, now being the only one of his team left, became quite solitary. He was no longer his old, Naruto-like self. He became much more like his fallen comrades; quiet, patient, everything the old Kiba wasn't. His death- much to the horror of his friends- had been gruesome and unsightly. His best friend, his companion since he was little, his dog, caught… _something_. Whether it was a disease, a virus, or poison, no one was sure. Whatever it was, its affect on Akamaru was devastating. His fur turned red, he grew larger than his partner, and ten times more vicious.

Blood stained the walls of Kiba's home. Furnature was torn, walls and carpets were ripped, all his possessions were broken, and in the midst of all this chaos was Akamaru. It didn't take long to figure out what had happened. His dog had turned and attacked him, slashing and biting, tearing and ripping, and through it all Kiba didn't even raise a fist. We all knew he wouldn't. Akamaru was dead when they found him; the strain on his body had been too much for the little guy. After searching the apartment the only thing they could find of Kiba was his jacket. There was nothing else left to search for.

_Eight_

Chouji had taken the hit for his team the day he died. Ino and I were down for the count, my arm and leg broken, the pain leaving me only half conscious. Ino's ankle twisted in a way it shouldn't have been and she was bearing a major concussion. Still, there was one guy left, the leader of the merciless gang that was now all wiped out. All except him. The first time he had eaten that red pill of his was back when he had been twelve or thirteen- when I had led the mission to retrieve Sasuke. It almost killed him; it _should_ have killed, and _would_ have killed him, had it not been for the Sand ninjas helping us along the way. So what was he thinking when he pulled the same life threatening stunt _again_? I remember asking that to Ino a month later, but she didn't have to answer. We knew exactly what he was thinking when he did it. He was thinking of _us_.

_Six and Seven_

Tenten went next, and with her, so did Lee. She had been on a mission. A solo one. The goal was to terminate the serial killer and cannibal that had been rampaging through the outskirts of Konoha, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He was a master swordsman, and of course, who better to fight a swordsman than Tenten? The assignment had never been called easy- it was an A class. After the mission was completed, a scythe stabbed through the heart of the murderer, she only made it as far as the entrance to Konoha before falling on her knees and collapsing. Making it that far with a sword sticking out your stomach is no small feat, however, and it was not forgotten. The guards positioned at the gate ran to get Tsunade for medical attention, but it was already too late. It had been too late for her since Neji died, and we all knew it.

Lee had cared for Tenten as much more than a friend, and as a result, we weren't surprised to watch him go through depression. Of course, we didn't just _watch. _We tried everything we could think of to cheer him up, Sakura more so than anyone else. Maybe she had grown attached to him after all those times he tried asking her out. We could do nothing to help him though, or at least nothing much. He faded away slowly but surly, and it was Sakura's first great loss.

_Five_

Ino's death was the one that had both Sakura and I heartbroken. She had been on a reconnaissance mission, sent to gather information on the Akatsuki. It was an S class mission, but she had still managed to infiltrate the ranks of the famous elite ninjas. However there had been one person who found out about her mission- Itachi himself. She was tortured and bribed to give up information on Konoha; its weak points and its best ninjas, anything that would help them. She refused, because that's what Konoha's military does. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened next.

I stayed relatively the same on the outside, but when I was alone the full symptoms of depression hit me. I knew I wasn't the only one feeling that way. If anyone took it harder than I did, it was Sakura. We didn't hear her talk again after the funeral- we never would. She refused to speak from that day on, almost as if the fact that Ino could no longer talk made it so she couldn't also. Maybe they were more connected than I thought they were. I wouldn't be surprised.

_Four, Three, Two_

We finally got to see Sasuke again, though it wasn't really Sasuke. He was so changed…so manipulated and tired, he looked like he had gone through hell. He looked like he was still _in it_. I only saw him for a few minutes though, since Orochimaru's army soon became my top priority. Itachi had been killed a month earlier, we knew, but Sasuke didn't really have the choice to come back. By law, he would most likely be executed. No words were exchanged when Naruto and Sakura first saw him, but nothing needed to be said. Teammates wasn't a word that quite cut it when describing their bond. Sakura had backed up, giving Sasuke a look that seemed so complicated I couldn't untangle the message hidden in it, but I could tell by the way her 'teammates' looked that _they_ could.

Naruto charged, and the battle that followed was too terrific, too fantastically terrifying to be described. In the end though, it turned out just as I knew it would. They both won. Or maybe it was a loss on both ends; I didn't know them well enough to discern _exactly_ what had happened. Either way though, both ended up dead, along with the nine-tailed fox, Orochimaru, and hundreds of Konoha's military. In the middle of it all, when the dust was clearing and the wind dying down, Sakura stood there. She turned to me and smiled, sending a wave my way. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that, but I _do_ know that I never saw her again. She disappeared- no footprints, no smoke bombs used, no genjutsu… she was just gone, and her teammate's bodies along with her. They were never found.

_One _

I'm all that's left of that legendary team of ninjas, one of the few testaments to our existance. In time though, I know that I, too, will surly be forgotten. At the old age of seventy-four, I'm sitting on my death bed. I can feel that I don't have much time left, and I'm glad that I'll finally get to see all my friends again. If there is one thing I regret it's being the last one alive. But maybe that's for the best- if I wasn't last, someone else would have been. That might have been worse. My eyes are closing and my heart is slowing down, there's no more sight or taste or sound or anything else. This isn't the end of our story though, not by a long shot. Our kids will make sure of that.

…_**There were none…**_

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**A/N**: In case anyone's wondering, the last line corresponds to the title… so… yeah… Review if you can, I feel I need feedback on this one. Thanks to anyone that does, you have no idea how much I appreciate it. Lastly, there were a lot of implications in this fic, and if you didn't catch them I'm afraid I'm not patient enough to explain them (sorry! It's not my nature to be patient). 


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